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Microsoft's Bulk Deal With New Zealand Collapses
vik writes "The latest 3-year, pan-government deal that Microsoft has been establishing with the New Zealand government since 2000 has collapsed, opening the doors to the wider use of open source software in government. The NZ State Services Commission (already a prize-winning user of open source) says in a statement that it '...became apparent during discussions that a formal agreement with Microsoft is no longer appropriate.' Having lost their discount, individual government departments will now have to put their IT requirements out to tender individually."
Doors open! Get 'em, boys!
The individual departments should be required to use open formats where open formats exist. It's far past the time governments should be held hostage with proprietary formats.
I'd be happily surprised if a National government was the one to embrace Free software and start the process of eventually seeing it used in schools, which then flows to the work place and homes... But we'll see... I would be very surprised if the government picked open source.
Before you all rejoice in hallelujah glory please remember that:
1) MS is a powerful marketing organisation with a single control center. It has millions to spend on lobbying. Instead of one central purchasing order they will go after each state/county and government organisation parallely and independently.
2) To take advantage of this situation the FOSS/Open Source has NO marketing budget or marketing plan except for some backdoor geeks.
3) Lobbyists that MS hires far outmatch the abilities of what FOSS can bring up....
Let's face facts ok?
We have been a good, in fact excellent opening in a battle. The enemy has taken a big kick in its balls and is down for a few moments.
But, we lack the control center and resources of taking advantage of it.
If i were Red Hat or Ubuntu (in a corporate sense), i would be in NZ now talking to the main permanent secretaries and other pukes down there to hammer down an initial PoC for Linux/Open office.
And yes i would offer a central help center staffed by real people who can train the department's IT staff and/or assist them in installing, fixing bugs, training staff, etc all the things Microsoft will do.
And yes, i would sign a one-year contract with them offering them a FREE software with paid support.
But, as FOSS supporter do i have a centralized marketing budget, people, resources to make it happen?
NOOOO.
Its likea Sniper going against an entire armoured division. Yeah it sounds gung-ho, but that does not win a war gentlemen. We need the three C's of marketing. Command, Control and a Corporate willing to take risks and Money.
Once we have that in form of Red Hat or corporate Ubuntu we can talk about a Master Plan on taking down MS...
Until then shut up the vodka bottles. Its too early to celebrate.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
I bet they just want better deal, and think this will help. Who knows, they are probably right about that.
Maybe microsoft should work on making windows more user friendly so you don't have to spend hours in the dos cli configuring irq numbers and io addresses, dealing with constant crashes and manually installing networking support just so they can get a workable graphic interface to check their mail with..
Oh wait, it's not 1993 anymore...
Linux these days is generally much easier to install than windows, and proprietary unix was always much easier than windows (because like macos, it came bundled with hardware designed to run it)
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In longitude it is pretty close.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
This is getting fucking tiresome. At first I gave this argument (user friendliness) some thought, of course Linux is different so it has to be either easier or more difficult, no two OSs are exactly equal. Then after hearing this argument about a thousand times between showing everybody from coworkers to friends to my own mother, whom isn't the youngest hen in the pen to put it gently, how to use Ubuntu I come to realise that most of the times it's because you are so fucking lazy. In my experience most people reject it simply because it's different, and different is scary, it's unknown. When my mother asks me for help I refuse to help her, instead I tell her "let's pretent that you have psychic powers and with that you just 'know' where to look for the answer", while I survey. Most times she, being 60+, finds whatever she's looking for. For example if she would ask me how to change the layout of the document she's working with in OOo I'd tell her, "What would be the 'category' of this action? Would it fit more into e.g. changing views or handling files or editing the contents?". Naturally where I'm going with this is to show her that she doesn't need to be scared, she can, with some common sense and an eager index finger, check for it in the logical places she can imagine.
In my experience it's not so difficult to teach a person with low Windows knowledge to do the same fundamental actions in another OS, Ubuntu being my preferred alternative for these. The tasks these people do are virtually the same. What is difficult is to teach the thick headed thinks-he-knows-his-computer guy, that has learned some semi advanced tweaking and configuring in Windows, to start "all over". To me it's clear, these people push it away not because they can't, but because they thought they could and when they realise that Windows has tought them very little (since little hacking is necessary) about general OS structure and configuration. I'm saying this because the first time I really forced myself to give Linux a chance I started off, on recommendation from friends using Linux, with Slackware. As a thick headed thought-I-knew-my-computer I'd tell you one thing: I was fucking lost. This failed, that failed -- and I can tell you that from a Windows users perspective the word "sound server" was very confusing. But as I moved further and further away from the Windows concept (what I thought was how an OS was built) I began learning how OSs function in reality. Of course the hardware resources of your soundcard may only be accessable by one application, which is why you need a sound server to distribute/gather/tunnel the stream, but Windows never even hinted this very fundamental fact about hardware/software interaction. Also I have to add that this was many years ago and long before Mark Shuttleworth first spoke the word Ubuntu, nowadays the sound server example might be nullified by Ubuntu as well. But it wouldn't matter, my point is that you find it difficult because you find it difficult, not because it is difficult, if you understand what I mean. So you see there are 3 types of users, the one that knows, the one that doesn't know and last and worst the one that thinks he knows, don't be the latter, nobody likes this guy.
I am the lawn!
NZ will still buy all software from MS, just at much more inflated prices. Buying OSS from a zoo of little guys is just too much hassle for IT and the buyers.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
It is a lie. Repeat after me. "A Computer is NOT an appliance".
Some things are not inherently simple. A blender is simple, a toaster is simple. A telecsope is NOT simple. You have to adjust where you are pointing it and the focus, know about lenses.
Things are moving along. Compare an SLR camera from 20 years ago to a push and click digital camera of today. There are still things to learn but the simple "point and click" "appliance" camera of today is a very powerful camera.
Microsoft has done everyone a diservice by saying that a computer IS an appliance. Take any group of hardware and add $200 of Microsoft products and you will have a working system. Easy to use and secure.
Everyeone wants to do word processing, but they don't want to lean how their OS stores files...so they can't find what they saved an hour from now. Everyone wants to send email, but they don't know how to read an error message that tells them why their email could not be delivered.
Short of running a kiosk, we are not anywhere near the "appliance" stage of PC computing. Anyone saying otherwise should be swiftly kicked in the balls. Even if he is a geek with funny haircut and wears glasses.
vi +
Now try buying an all in one printer, a USB TV Tuner, and a Wifi USB stick. Remember-NO RESEARCH. Now go to distro foo and see if device barr you just got at Walmart works.
Having bought an overpriced prebuilt many years ago, I've been through all that and more. I still remember the five hour delay while Windows Update downloaded a 30MB bloated, shitty sound card driver over dialup because the OEM install CD didn't bother to include one. It worked on Knoppix "out of the box". Guess windows just isn't ready for the desktop.